Ukrainian drones now spray 4,000° F thermite streams right into Russian trenches
Ukrainian drones now spray 4,000° F thermite streams right into Russian trenches
Mechanical dragons now deliver fire on command.
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Now, I'm all for the freedom of defending your country... But am I the only one thinking that this is presented in a bit too much of a good light? Like, what is the title supposed to make me feel? If the nationalities were reversed, would this have been posted here still?
I genuinely thank you for sharing this info, but I can't help feeling uncomfortable reading about atrocious killing devices in a technology thread.
Boo fucking hoo. Most of them willingly went into Ukraine to kill, pillage, rape and torture innocent ukranians. They always have an option to desert, yet they still choose to murder. I will never have any sympathy towards them.
I take no delight in killing but Russian forces could leave Ukraine at any point and put an end to it.
Can the individual soldiers just give up and leave?
The russian soldiers are in an awful predicament in this war. But they are still the aggressors and Ukraine has the right (obligation even, seeing what Russia tends to do to civilian population it conquers) to defend itself against them..and as awful as these weapons are, they have not been used in an illegal way here according to international law (something that Russia doesn't give a flying fuck about, btw.).
Personally, I don't see a moral issue here though I of course would prefer if noone had to die of which only happens in the case of Putin withdrawing his troops right now.The vast majority of them could simply not have volunteered. Also, you can surrender.
Implying many of them are volunteers at all
Actually one of the few political pressures Putin has had to deal with internally has been preventing conscripts from fighting outside of Russian territory, which has included not sending them into the supposedly-annexed oblasts in the east. They've had to make do with massive signing bonuses, prison recruitment, stop loss, and PMCs to make up the manpower shortage. Definitely some high-pressure tactics in use, but no actual use of legal force. Unless this video was taken on the Kursk front then any Russian soldiers who this was targeting had signed contracts that they could have chosen not to.
He can surrender, like many already did.
Maybe, but I've seen plenty of videos of Russians attempting to surrender to drones, and getting killed anyway.
Are their shoes tied together or something?
I'm right there with you. My first reaction to the video in the article was "well that's terrifying".
Wait until you hear about the semi-autonomous killer drone swarms, designed to prevent signal jamming (by not needing an operator).
Oof
Also, tracker removed: https://youtu.be/kFSR6OuWVQ4
Is it as terrifying as Russia invading your country?
Both is terrifying, I rather not have the option to pick.
Russia is already using thermite charges, thermobaric weapons and tear gas. They get what's coming to them.
Phosphorous too IIRC
Even the US uses white phosphorus against infantry in violation of international law. I can't imagine what we'd resort to with Russian soliders on our soil.
Lol Russian soldiers on US soil? The US military would do good to hang back, avert their gaze, and let the US citizens handle things how they see fit. Plausible deniability and all that
Of course they do, it's main use is smoke generation.
It’s only a violation of international law when used near civilians
Oh man.....Geneva convention would be out the window and most land based invaders at that point would probably beg to be shipped back. And it's not because of the military in America. It's because of its inhabitants. When the banjos start tuning in the Appalachian forests you know Hell is a safer space than anywhere you're going to reach.
That's easy to say without bullet holes in your buildings and bombs being found every few months in your capital.
IMO the US public is presenting so warlike because they never experienced war directly to a scale of WWII as a populace, especially not in living memory.
War does not look like "let's use all our guns and go kick commie ass", especially resisting an occupation. It looks like your hometown burned and poisoned, never to be rebuilt in your lifetime. It looks like people you know and care about dying, being raped with impunity, or just plain disappearing. If you pick up a rifle, you are going up against trained and experienced and also more importantly, quite desensitized enemies who have been doing what you are planning to do for months if not years. And even if you shoot one, they will hang ten of your townsfolk tomorrow.
Just look at Mariupol and Gaza and think whether anyone would thrive in that environment.
Do you understand how many veterans are in America? How many militia there are? How many guns we have?
There's a reason America didn't get land invaded other than the giant ocean and logistical shit storm it would be. It's our gun per person situation.
You remember how hard it was for America to fight Afghanistan in the mountains? Imagine another country fighting America in their mountains lol. No infinite ammo to shell mountains, Americans trained with rifles commercially available to fire cleanly 1KM. Every. Single. American. Has one...most that own guns have a decent stock pile of ammo. Shit my 7 year old can shoot a soda cap off at 30 yards with iron sights.
We readily have explosives we can order from Amazon... 2/3 of our rural population drives what Europeans would consider monster trucks. That's one hell of a technical.
This wouldn't be a "go wolverines" situation. This would be 80+ years of war and gun culture ingrained in Americans through countless years in human lives of video games and television propaganda. Ukraine has a population of 38 million. America has 120 million just on its Eastern coasts. I think if we come to a middle ground here I think we can both agree it wouldn't be pretty but significant pushback and ultimate failure on an invaders advances purely on the geology and American civilian militarization factor.
I am not talking about whether strategically it would be a good idea to engage in conventional warfare with the US. I am talking about the fact that how you and a lot of Americans are talking about war means that they have never really experienced one, not in living memory at least.
War is a nightmare. It's not a valiant defence with plucky resistance fighters outwitting the enemy in the mountains. It's seeing your buddy still alive and conscious with half his face missing after being hit by a drone. It's your wife writing "please, it's the children here" in front of the school in chalk before they are hit anyway with white phosphorus, burning their flesh off slowly. It's soldiers raping you for fun, even if you are a man, before they kill you.
It’s our gun per person situation.
How many of those guns are effective against artillery? Against even 60 year old tanks? Against remote targeting machine guns with thermal sights? Against attack helicopters? Russia had more tanks per person than any country on Earth, they are still getting trounced. Modern warfare does not care about your semi auto at home.
You remember how hard it was for America to fight Afghanistan in the mountains? Imagine another country fighting America in their mountains lol.
You remember how that war looked? Look at this article. One battle, 18 dead from the occupying side, 1000+ local soldiers killed. Could you bear to read these in the US? Can you imagine how the US would look like after fighting 20 years of this? Let me help you, it would look like Afghanistan.
America has 120 million just on its Eastern coasts.
China has an army of 2 million at peacetime, and it is not maintaining as many overseas bases as the US. The US currently has around 1 million people in the army one way or another. Of course, if it was real, total war as you imagine, these numbers would go up, fast.
During WWII, the Soviet Union had a population of around 200 million. 26 million people died just on their side, of which only 10.5 million were soldiers. 2 million of these people died in a single battle, in Stalingrad. We have gotten much, much better at killing people since then.
This would be 80+ years of war and gun culture ingrained in Americans through countless years in human lives of video games and television propaganda.
You don't know war. War is hell on earth. It is tragedy on a mass scale, leaving scars for generations on whole societies. Seeing war movies in TV does not prepare you for shit. The US does not even have conscription.
Shit my 7 year old can shoot a soda cap off at 30 yards with iron sights.
Great, what will he do against incendiary rocket artillery at 10 km? You know, the kind which bursts in the air and covers him in burning napalm?
Yeah I'm not sure that war crimes work that way. You don't get a pass because the opponent is doing illegal things.
You literally get a pass because its not illegal to set an enemy on fire any more than its illegal to blow a hole in their guts with a bullet or fill their torso full of shrapnel. I'm not sure why you think it would be.
Using incendiaries away from civilians isn’t a war crime regardless of which side uses them
I don't think this qualifies as a war crime
If your enemy makes it very clear that they want to see you dead and your nation destroyed no matter the cost, why should you be beholden to giving them an advantage? Ukraine won't win with moral superiority.
I think that's exactly how it should work....
"They did it first" doesn't support the point, even when they're as bad as Russia has been.
"They did it first and continue to do it" is a pretty good reason in my book. The more decicive Russian losses are, the faster public sentiment will turn against Putin.
I hate war because it makes normal people say shit like this
War doesn't do that to people, xenophobia does. People are convinced The Enemy(tm) are less than human, and thus acceptable targets to die in horrible pain.
It's the truth. Putin wanted this war and the Russian people have been indoctrinated into following him blindly. The allied carpet-bombings of Nazi Germany caused untold suffering, but they were necessary to break the German will to fight. Hitler could've stopped the carpet bombing by surrendering. He could've prevented them from ever occurring, if he hadn't started wars with all neighbouring countries. Just as Hitler then, Putin now can stop this war. And it is Putin that could've prevented this war from ever taking place, if he hadn't invaded. But he did invade Ukraine. The untold number of crimes against humanity have been committed by the Russian army under his watch and it was his decision to send over 600.000 Russian troops to get crippled or killed in Ukraine. It is his war that just caused this man to lose his wive and three daughters (trigger warning: r*ddit). I truly hold no sympathy for any Russian that chooses to participate in this invasion. Whatever happens to them, they deserve it.
The allied carpet-bombings of Nazi Germany caused untold suffering, but they were necessary to break the German will to fight.
Nope. Morale bombing by and large doesn't work and that's why it's illegal now. On the flipside you have German Nazis use that and say "Look at all those allied war crimes" -- but they weren't war crimes at the time. And the Nazis very much started with the bombing campaigns.
No acknowledged historian believes that the strategic bombing of Germany shortened the war to any significant degree. The Nazi leaders didn't care and the civilians endured.
The Londoners didn't overthrow their government during their blitz, nor did the Germans during theirs.
Exactly, I hate what the Russians are doing, but as a former grunt, I'll never rejoice in killing.
If the nationalities were reversed, would this have been posted here still?
If Russia was illegally invaded & genocided by Ukraine as a consequence for wanting to become democratic and joining the West, then yes, people would rather root for Russia instead.
If Russia don't want their men to get "atrociously killed", then they can just fuck off back into their own country.
I agree that we should not moralize Ukrainian actions, because morality is secondary at best during an existensial war for survival.
But upholding the Geneva conventions is not about morality. It's about trying to prevent the worst and most horrific actions and outcomes that happen during war.
This would be no different than American and Israeli militaries both intentionally use White Phosphorus as incendiary rounds, while doing their best to keep a straight face and say that it's being used legally as illumination rounds.
Is Ukraine using this strictly under the legally defined laws of war? I don't know.
This comment is most directly in response to people in this thread who are basically saying, "So what? Who cares if it's used illegally as an incendiary round?"
I think you're confused. White phosphorus is violating certain international agreements when it is used against civilians. Ukraine is using this weapon to choke out Russian positions.
It’s about trying to prevent the worst and most horrific actions and outcomes that happen during war.
No. It's about trying to prevent militarily unnecessary worst and most horrific actions and outcomes.
White Phosphorus as incendiary rounds,
Perfectly legal. You can't use them as chemical rounds (they're shit at that anyways), or, as any other incendiary weapons, close to civilians. By far the most common use is as tracer rounds and in smokescreens, though.
It’s not an incendiary round though, it’s an incendiary weapon. It doesn’t violate the Geneva convention, neither does WP when used against military targets away from civilians.
You can "root" for a group and still keep the laws uniform and avoid hypocrisy. You really want to do all three.
Use of incendiary weapons against military targets is not a war crime unless in an area where civilians are present.
What laws and hypocrisy are you even talking about? lol
I do agree with you that the tone of the article doesn't really match the nature of what we're seeing, or that Ukraine is in a war of national survival.
I was thinking that too. We already have other weapons that are this effective, and we've banned them.
In most cases for the banned weapons, the US got to use them for a while first, which is what's happening here.
And the really fun ones we refuse to sign for so technically we aren't bound by them.
That article reads as entirely neutral. Neither positive or negative. The last lines even read as a bit of a negative to me.
Yeah I defend Ukraine against Russia, but war is war, and war never changes. It’s been 2 years of full fighting and I can’t pretend to be okay with a continuous war even against Russia and Putin who are awful.
So you would rather Ukrainians lay down their weapons and we'll have 20 years of Bucha and Holodomor, again? I somehow doubt you would prefer that to continued warfare, more likely thinking "war is awful" is taking precedence over "not fighting it would be a hell a lot worse". But that's why wars are, by and large, fought: Because people think that not doing it would be worse. Some because they're nuts, some, like Ukrainians, because they're spot-on.
The only party which can lay down their weapons and not get absolutely kicked in the face for it is Russia. Every minute it continues is on them.
Thermite is no joke. My initial thought was whether or not we're making the next Taliban right now. They were more fundamentalist and not seeking any kind of role in the UN but this kind of firepower is frightening in anyone's hands.
Someone go through the GC and tell me how this isn't a war crime now? This seems a lot like napalm or WP.
Yes, Russia's worse, and we all know it. But when we're done fighting monsters we shouldn't have become them.
The reason to avoid incendiary weapons near civilians is the heavy collateral damage to said civilians. It's no more illegal to burn enemy soldiers than fill their torsos full of shrapnel nor their bellies full of lead nor any of the other horrible things we do to enemy soldiers.
It's not illegal why should it be?
It’s not against the Geneva convention, it’s completely within the limits to use incendiary weapons against military targets. Read for yourself:
Can you point out the part of the geneva conventions that make using incendiary weapons against military targets in non civilian areas a war crime?
Why would it be a war crime? Just can't use the chemical payloads over civilian populations like Russia was during their initial campaigns.
Use of napalm also isn't a war crime, the context of targets is what makes it one.
Yes, Russia’s worse, and we all know it. But when we’re done fighting monsters we shouldn’t have become them.
When you are fighting for your survival from an enemy who has stated their goal is genocide of your peoples, you can do whatever the fuck you want to defend yourself from them.
Becoming the monster would be turning around and invading a smaller country.
You can do whatever the fuck you want
Yeah, Iraq should have gang raped more American POWs in self defense
gang raping American POWs didn't protect anyone. Actively killing the people who are currently trying to murder you with fire isn't meaningfully morally distinct than killing them with bullets.
And now they go silent.
The hypocrisy never ceases to amaze.
If you're aligned with the west, anything goes, without consequences. If not, you're a terrorist whether you like it or not.
What hypocrisy?? They made some ridiculously stupid comparison of combat methods with treatment of POWs, it's not the same thing at all lol